Upgrade a gas plant to produce LPG by DWC and conventional methods—Part 1

M. M. Mostafa, N. A. EL-Emam, M. A. EL-Shafie and T. M. Aboul-Fotouh, Mining and Petroleum Engineering Department, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt The LPG market has seen a steady increase in prices due to increasing demand for LPG worldwide, particularly for the petrochemicals, automotive, metal, ceramic and glass industries. While it is possible to recover LPG in natural gas processing operations, this raises the capital and operating costs of the plant considerably. For this reason, it is important to reduce costs during these processes. The divided wall column (DWC), or fully thermally coupled distillation system (FTCDS), is one of the most promising technologies to minimize energy c